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Hanne Lund Madsen has recently been appointed as the Senior Adviser at the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy, DIPD. Her main responsibility will be to provide advice and guidance to the Danish political parties regarding interventions to support multi-party democracy and to further the capacity, accountability and responsiveness of political parties.

A central task will also be the cooperation with national and international actors within political party assistance.

Hanne has extensive experience within democratic governance and democracy support having served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and several international organisations as adviser on strengthening of human rights and democracy. She has moreover acted as consultant to governments, NGOs, Donors, research institutions and private companies on strategic planning, programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America, the Balkans and the Pacific.

She has been involved in the development of a number of new initiatives and approaches to further democracy, human rights and corporate responsibility. For this reason she has also developed and conducted training courses and acted as a facilitator for a wide range of actors globally.

Her first week at work will be spent participating in the Round-table on Political Party Assistance in Washington organised by some of DIPD’s main international partners, NDI, NIMD and IDEA. The Round-table will focus on innovative approaches to political party assistance and the monitoring and evaluation of political party programmes.

Observing local campaigns, inspecting the empty ballot boxes and opening a polling centre, the seven Egyptian politicians and four representatives of civil society are getting to know the Danish democracy first hand.

Egyptian liberal politician Jaylan Khaled Abdelhamid Auf from the new party Masr El Horria Party has teamed up with Danish MP Eva Kjer Hansen from the Danish liberal party Venstre during the last days of the Danish election campaign to learn how the Danish democracy works. Therefore, Jaylan has witnessed the handing out of flyers and preparation of bags of carrots with stickers advertising Venstre as a way of getting the party message out. Read more

Around 85 percent of the Danish electorate will vote in today’s parliamentary elections. This is among the highest in the world. The elections takes place on the same day that the world is celebrating the International Day of Democracy, established by the United Nations in 2007. Read more

The first day of the visit offered an in-depth explanation of the Danish political system and elections by Lars Bille, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. At the seminar, Lars Bille said that 90% of the Danes are satisfied with how Danish democracy works, which is the highest rating in Europe. But he also underlined that civil society plays an important role in democracy. “Outside the official political and electoral system, there is a system of associations and organizations which operate according to democratic rules”, Lars Bille said. “Actually you can argue that democracy in Denmark is increasing!” Read more

Between 11 and 18 September 2011, seven Egyptian politicians from a wide range of Egyptian political parties as well as four representatives from Egyptian civil society visit Denmark to study and observe the Danish parliamentary elections. Read more

Our vision

The vision of the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy is to contribute to the development of well-functioning democratic political parties, multi-party systems and other institutions as central stakeholders in the democratic culture of selected developing countries.